Supernatural's Jensen Ackles Is Camera-Ready

Supernatural's Jensen Ackles Is Camera-Ready

After five seasons playing Supernatural's cocky demon hunter Dean Winchester, Jensen Ackles tries out his directing talents on this week's episode, "Weekend at Bobby's" (airing Friday at 9/8c on The CW).

"I'd been studying the technical aspects of directing over the years, so the producers finally told me, 'If you want do this, it's yours.' They wrote an episode that was light for [Dean] and focused on Bobby [Jim Beaver], who's trying to regain the soul that he sold to [the demon] Crowley [Mark Sheppard]. And they were nice enough to move the episode to the beginning of the shooting schedule so I had time to prep."

Being behind the camera was pretty "daunting," Ackles admits, but costar Jared Padalecki, who plays Dean's younger bro, Sam, went easy on him. "He gave me more slack than he's given any director in our 113 episodes." Now that's some brotherly love.